Know your local cuttlefish

Thanks to Tay Ywee Chieh, I've learnt more about some of the cuttlefishes and squids (locally called 'sotong') commonly seen on our shores! Knowing their identities has helped me learn more about the fascinating behaviour of these cephalopods! Cuttlefish are not fish! They are molluscs (Phylum Mollusca) like snails, slugs and clams; and cephalopods (Class Cephalopoda) which include squids and octopuses . This small stout cuttlefish edged with iridescent glittering spots around its fins is commonly seen on among seagrasses at Changi. Thanks to Ywee Chieh, I learn that it is Sepiella inermis , which I shall call the Glittering cuttlefish . Elsewhere, it is called the Spineless cuttlefish because its cuttlebone lacks a spine at the tip that many other cuttlefishes have. Females, which are usually bigger than males, lay a single black globular egg capsule, attaching it to a ha...